


when i think about you (well, you know the rest)

by Jazzfordshire



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Kara doesn’t realize that snapchat notifies people when you screencap their photos, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena figures out Kara is Supergirl while masturbating, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, and she learns the hard way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:27:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzfordshire/pseuds/Jazzfordshire
Summary: “The world comes to a grinding halt for a moment when she sees something bad. Something horrific. Possibly the worst thing that’s ever happened in human or Kryptonian history.A solid little purple arrow, coloured in, next to Lena’s name.”ORWherein Lena makes a realization during a private moment, and Snapchat almost ruins Kara’s life.





	when i think about you (well, you know the rest)

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless smut ahead, in various places. I wanted to write Supercorp phone sex and then there were some feelings and then Snapchat got involved, and this is what sprang from my keyboard.

It’s been a very long week.

Monday starts off bright and early with Jess’ appendix bursting. Her replacement, while enthusiastic, is less than adequate at keeping Lena’s schedule organized, and every few hours is a new crisis – for each one she adds a bit more to the pay raise that Jess is absolutely going to get when she returns from her much-deserved time off. The new irrigation technology she’s been trying to develop is stuck in the testing phase because of her capitalistic investors, and she’s had to suffer through no less than _three_ board meetings in six days. 

So if on Saturday night she pours herself a very large glass of red wine, puts The Cranberries in her record player, sinks into a bubble bath in her huge tub, and indulges in some harmless sexual fantasy about National City’s resident red-caped lesbian sex symbol, she’s damn well earned it. 

The hot water is soothing on her sore muscles and for a few minutes, she just soaks in it, listening to the soft Irish rock floating in from her living room. She makes her way through a glass and a half of wine before she starts to feel the buzz, her hands starting to wander over slippery skin. 

In her mind’s eye is Supergirl, with her confident smile and her hands on her hips. She could lift Lena so easily, pin her down and ravish her and leave her sated without breaking a sweat. Lena’s fingers slide over her nipples, already stiff despite the hot water. Supergirl would lift her to sit on her office desk, divesting her of her skirt and ripping her expensive panties off and littering her lower belly with kisses. Lena would sink her fingers into that soft hair, tug it until Supergirl’s head followed.

And then, with no warning, it’s Kara’s ponytail she’s tugging on - Kara is nudging Lena’s inner thighs further apart with her nose as she lowers her mouth and moans at the taste, her eyes sparkling behind those glasses –

Lena’s hips buck hard against her hand at the thought and she stops abruptly, torn between overwhelming arousal and crippling guilt.

_Shit._

_Shit, fuck._

Fantasizing about Supergirl is one thing – she’s a symbol, distinctly untouchable, and Lena is only human. She can’t be expected to resist that quiet strength and intensity, the solid build and the super-strength. 

Fantasizing about her best friend is another beast entirely. It’s off-limits, strictly taboo. Letting herself think about Kara - sweet, affectionate, painfully heterosexual Kara – is the first step down a very slippery slope, and she does not intend to relive her straight-girl-crush days.

Never mind how her arousal rocketed from a solid 8 to an off-the-charts 11 the moment the reporter entered her thoughts.

_Supergirl. Muscles, biteable neck, strong hands, hot skirt._

She eases herself back into the fantasy slowly. _Supergirl_ , using her very useful Kryptonian lung capacity, slipping under the water between her parted thighs. Long blonde hair turning dark and wet and slick, her teeth nipping little sparks of pain down her torso. A hot mouth on her inner thighs, long fingers teasing and then slipping inside to fill her deep and hard. Her own fingers are a pale imitation, but the pleasure still sparks up her spine.

Her feet slip against the floor of the tub and wet hairs are sticking to her neck and Supergirl is fucking her in earnest, except they’re in a bed now – the room is familiar, exposed brick walls and open concept design but Lena shakes it off, focuses on the sensations. Supergirl’s strong shoulders under her knees, soft blonde hair in her hands, a cute polka-dotted button-up shirt hanging off Kara’s shoulders –

_Oh, god._

Her thoughts are getting jumbled as she approaches the best orgasm she’s had in ages, and Kara’s face and Supergirl’s start to blend and flicker together in a confusing hybrid but she couldn’t stop her hands right now if she tried – it’s too much, it’s dirty and it’s _wrong_ but it builds and builds and it feels too damn _good._

Supergirl is wearing Kara’s glasses as she pins Lena’s hips to the mattress, Kara has her hair down in Supergirl’s loose blonde waves as her tongue laves at Lena’s aching clit, they’re intertwining and their smiles are so similar, their hands are both strong, their faces are interchangeable, and when Kara-Supergirl picks up the pace in her mind her own fingers speed up until she’s gasping, coming hard into the mouth of her best friend wearing Supergirl’s crest. Water splashes over the sides of the tub as she thrashes her way through it, her hair slick with sweat and bubbles; her hands shake as she lets them float slowly back to the surface, her pulse roaring in her ears. 

In her head is a film reel of moments, moments that gave her a strange feeling at the time and are just now coming together with horrifying clarity. Supergirl’s quiet intensity and distance, Kara blushing and fussing with her glasses as she _just_ misses Supergirl’s grand entrance to the gala, _I flew here on a bus, Kara Danvers believes in you…_

In the bath, two glasses of red wine deep with ‘You and Me’ playing softly in the background and the haze of her orgasm still clinging to her, it clicks into place.

"What the _FUCK_."

 

This is a hypothesis that needs to be tested. Systematically and scientifically. She can’t just go running to Kara with half-baked theories about her being a caped alien vigilante. She needs to observe, and record, and study. 

The fact that this entire process is a distraction from the real issue before her – that her best friend might have been lying to her for over a year – is not lost on her. She simply pushes it to the back of her head, where it belongs.

She has lunch with Kara on Tuesday, and the observation begins.

As they eat, Kara poking gentle fun at Lena’s healthy selection, Lena tries to memorize her features objectively. The shape and colour of her eyes, her bow lips, her crinkled smile, the tiny scar just above her left eyebrow. It all adds up to a beautiful picture.

"Lena? Do I have something on my face?" 

Lena blushes a little, remembering only a few nights ago when her fantasy-Kara _definitely_ had something on her face.

_No. Bad Lena. Focus._

"No, no. I was just wondering how you got that scar."

"Oh!" Kara smiles, touching it gently. "It happened when I was a kid. My aunt took me to the opera, and when we were leaving someone stepped on my dress and I fell. I hit my head on the stairs." 

“Sounds painful.” 

“It was, but we had good medicine on – where I grew up.”

“Where was that exactly? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned where you lived before Midvale.” Lena fights to keep her tone even and light as she pushes her food around on her plate, no longer feeling very hungry. Kara gapes for a second.

“Where was – where I grew up? Oh, um. North.” Kara winces slightly, as if she knows how silly that sounds. Lena is about to press further when Kara’s phone rings, and she answers it with obvious relief.

“Alex? Yeah, I’m just at lunch with Lena.” Kara sighs, and nods. “Okay, I’ll see you soon.” She hangs up, frowning. “I’m really sorry, Lena, but I have to go. It’s my sister.”

“Is she all right?”

“Yeah! She just, uh. I guess the whole thing with Maggie has been really hard on her, and she needs me.” 

“In the middle of the day?” 

Kara blushes, already putting on her coat. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Let me just –“ She pulls her wallet out of her purse, taking out a wrinkled twenty and offering it.

“Don’t be silly, Kara. It’s my treat. Go on. Give her a hug from me.” 

Kara hugs her tightly, kissing her cheek briefly before bustling out of the restaurant. A few minutes later, breaking news flashes across the TV screen suspended from the ceiling a few booths over – ‘Supergirl prevents biohazardous waste spill caused by renegade alien’. The knot in her chest twists tighter, and she writes her findings in a newly-aquired leather-bound notebook. 

She doesn’t get any major leads for another two weeks. Another day, another attempt on her life. This one isn’t too serious – a half-hearted assassination attempt from a stakeholder, hoping to profit on L-Corp’s stocks taking a dip after her death. 

Supergirl, as usual, is there before any major damage is done. Bullet blocked, assassin arrested, and not even a broken piece of furniture this time. Supergirl makes sure that Lena is all right, but when she turns to the balcony to make her exit, Lena catches her wrist.

“Have a drink with me?”

Supergirl blinks, confused. The tension in Lena’s chest is coiling, tighter, tighter. 

“I…should keep a clear head. For patrolling.”

Lena scoffs, pouring two glasses of scotch. “Does alcohol even affect Kryptonians?”

“…well, no. But –“

“One drink, Supergirl. I won’t keep you long.”

She accepts the drink hesitantly, taking a sip and wincing at the taste. 

“Eugh. You drink this? Willingly?” 

Lena finishes her glass in one swig, her hands unsteady. The face is so familiar. It’s the same one Kara made when Lena made her try kale. 

Tighter, tighter. 

Lena steps close. Closer than she’s ever been to Supergirl before, close enough to see the flecks of dark grey in her wide blue eyes. Slowly she circles, taking in her features as Supergirl looks more and more nervous.

The eyes are similar, yes. Not hidden behind glasses, she can see the resemblance. There's a familiar crinkle between her brows as Supergirl frowns, looking uncomfortable. 

"Miss Luthor -?" 

As Lena completes the circle, she sees it. A tiny scar, barely an indent, just above her left eyebrow. 

She isn't sure if she feels elated or nauseous. 

Slowly, she reaches up to put a gentle fingertip on the mark. Supergirl – _Kara. It’s Kara_ \- is fidgeting in earnest now. 

"Miss Luthor, are you alright?" Her voice is shaking slightly and it's so achingly familiar now that Lena doesn't know how she could ever have been so blind.

"How does a Kryptonian get a scar?" Lena murmurs, her finger still tracing gently over it. "You're invulnerable." 

Kara gapes for a few seconds, and Lena knows. It's the same expression that Kara had on her face when they met, when Lena suggested that she should be a reporter.

"I - it happened on Krypton. It healed before I came here, so..."

"Mmm. And how did you get it?"

"I -"

"I suppose it was on Krypton that your aunt took you to the opera."

Kara's eyes are shiny, her hands shaking. The sight clashes so drastically with the Supergirl front that, like magic, all she sees is Kara with her hair down. The curtain is gone, and Lena sees the truth.

"Lena -"

Lena turns away, refilling her glass with trembling hands and taking a deep drink. She takes it to the couch, sitting down and closing her eyes. She doesn't feel angry, really. She's not even surprised. She's just...sad, and sort of empty. Resigned. 

_I suppose it’s my lot in life to love people who lie to me._

Kara follows her to the couch, falling to her knees in front of her and reaching out her shaking hands to rest on Lena's lap. Lena takes another drink.

"Lena, please, I'm sorry - please don't - I wanted to tell you, so many times, I swear."

Setting down her empty glass on the table, Lena rubs tiredly at her temples. "Was it all a lie, Kara? All the times you told me you trusted me, that my last name didn't matter?"

"No, Lena, please _. Please_ just let me explain." At Lena's weary silence, Kara keeps talking. 

"I should have told you. I know. At first, it was - it was because of your last name. And I'm sorry, Lena - we had just met, and I trusted you but everyone else at the DEO wouldn't - but we became friends, and I wanted to tell you then, too, but..."

Kara is crying in earnest now, on her knees in front of the couch, her voice broken and her expression heartbreaking. The tears run down her face and drip onto Lena’s pants. Lena tries desperately to throw up the walls around her heart, the ones that Kara ripped down months ago, but she can't anymore. She listens, unwillingly enraptured, as Kara pushes on.

"You're such a good friend, Lena, and I love - I love spending time with you. When I'm with you, I feel human. You just need me to be your friend, and I liked that. I wanted to keep it. And then...and then it was too late, and I knew you’d be upset when you knew. I kept putting it off because I was scared to lose you. It was like this ticking clock before you found out, and I was too much of a stupid coward to just do it."

Lena wasn't expecting the honesty. She wasn't expecting Kara to literally beg on her knees, to cry and grasp at her hands like she's actually important. 

"You should have told me."

"I know. I know."

There's a silence. Kara sniffles, raising a hand to wipe at her wet face. She dries the hand on her skirt before hesitantly putting it back in Lena’s lap, sliding her fingers onto Lena’s still ones.

"I don't expect you to forgive me. I just -" Kara's face wavers, contorting slightly as if she's holding back a sob, and Lena's heart breaks. "I just wanted you to know. I trust you. You're my best friend, Lena. I was selfish, and this is my fault. Not yours." 

Sniffling, Kara picks herself carefully off the ground, smoothing out her skirt. 

“I’ll go. I understand if – if you don’t want to see me.” 

Before she can walk away, Lena catches her wrist again. Against her better judgement, she speaks, her voice raspy.

“I think I just need some time.”

“Of course, of course, anything Lena. Anything you need.” Kara is desperate again, looking so heartbreakingly relieved that Lena is even willing to _try_ that Lena can’t help but give her a small, reassuring smile. 

They don’t speak for six weeks.

Intellectually, she understands Kara’s reasoning. Kara avoided telling her to keep this exact situation from happening, but like an ouroboros the longer she kept it a secret, the worse she knew it would make Lena feel and the more the wanted to ignore it. 

Having spent most of her life avoiding tough emotional conversations, Lena can relate, at least.

But despite that, despite understanding on a deep level the things that made Kara keep her identity a secret, it still _hurts_. It physically hurts her to think of all those lies, all the times Kara rushed out on her, all the deep personal things that Lena shared when she expected the same level of honesty. 

Lena takes some time, thinking everything over. True to her word Kara doesn’t try to reach out, but about once a week Lena finds plumerias on her desk or her favourite takeout order waiting when she gets back from an afternoon meeting. Jess claims to know nothing about it, but Lena thinks otherwise. 

The gestures are sweet and thoughtful and just distant enough, like Kara wants to take care of her from afar, and Lena finds herself warming to them despite her request for space. She has to consistently remind herself not to text Kara and thank her, has to remind herself that she can’t do that anymore, because _Kara lied._

_Pull it together, Lena._

Even so, she misses Kara acutely. She misses their meals together, Kara’s emoji-filled texts and her casual physical contact. She hadn’t realized exactly how touch-starved she’d been before Kara came into her life, but now that she’s gone Lena feels the loneliness almost like a physical pain. 

It doesn’t help that Lena sees her everywhere. Supergirl is National City’s darling, and easily its most visible public figure. She sees her on TV, on magazine covers, and in the statue that she herself had commissioned months ago. Thankfully there have been no imminent disasters in her life that required Supergirl’s intervention, although there was one small incident – a man had been shadowing her as she returned home from a late-night grocery trip, and just as she had been reaching for her taser he disappeared with a muffled shout and a brief flash of red and blue. Kara hadn’t tried to speak to her, and Lena couldn’t decide whether she preferred it that way or not.

Finally, after exactly 46 days of radio silence, the pattern breaks.

Lena enters her office - rubbing her eyes tiredly after a 2-hour stakeholder meeting - to find Alex Danvers standing by her desk, wide-eyed and guilty-looking, with a vase full of flowers.

“Agent…Danvers?” Lena manages to choke out, pure shock making it difficult to process the picture in front of her.

“Uh. Miss Luthor. I was just…stopping by, and thought…you might want some flowers.” Alex grinds out, looking distinctly uncomfortable. 

Lena raises a pointed eyebrow, approaching her desk slowly.

She takes a seat in her chair, trying to orient herself in the midst of this strange conversation. “You know, for a federal agent, you’re not a very good liar. Although I suppose you probably aren’t actually FBI, are you?” 

“Not exactly.” Alex is exactly as taciturn as usual, and she puts the vase on Lena’s desk. “She couldn’t make it today. She wanted to make sure that you had flowers, and apparently I can’t say no. Your assistant said you were in a meeting.” The older Danvers turns abruptly after delivering the message and makes her way back to the door at a quick clip.

“Alex?” Lena calls out before she can stop herself. At the uncharacteristic use of her first name, Alex turns back around, one hand on the handle. 

“How is she?” Lena asks quietly, almost ashamed at her lack of willpower.

“She’s…sad.” Alex replies, her expression softening. “She misses you.”

“I miss her too.” 

“Lena…she didn’t want to lie to you.”

“But she did.” Even to her own ears, Lena knows that her protest sounds weak.

“I know. But you have to understand – I’ve spent her entire life here convincing her that she has to hide, that telling anyone who she really is will get her hurt. Will get _them_ hurt. It’s…a hard pattern to break.” 

Lena nods, thoughtful. Finally Alex takes her leave, and Lena sits for a moment, staring at the beautiful flowers that Kara conned her sister into delivering. Finally, she manages a small smile.

She ends up taking them home with her, setting the vase on her kitchen island as she cooks dinner. She does it mindlessly, singing quietly to the record she put on when she got home, and by the end she realizes that she’s made enough stir-fry to feed herself and about 8 other people. 

Well, herself and one Kryptonian. 

Sighing, Lena gives in. She’s exhausting herself trying to stay away from Kara. She misses her best friend, and even if things are different now, she has to try. 

Kara picks up on the first ring.

“Lena!” Kara sounds breathless, like she just ran to the phone. Probably using superspeed. Lena’s chest hurts briefly, but it eases when Kara continues before she can even say hello.

“I was really hoping you’d call. I mean, I know you wanted space, and I’ve been trying so hard to give it to you, but I missed you so much, I’m so glad you called –“

“Kara!” Lena cuts in, smiling despite herself.

“Yeah?”

“Hi.”

Kara laughs, sounding sheepish. She clears her throat. “Hi.”

There’s a brief silence, the line crackling between them. Lena can hear the muted sound of a TV in the background, and Kara’s breathing. 

Lena gives in. 

“I…missed you too.”

A few minutes later Kara is seated in her breakfast nook, shoveling stir-fry and rice into her mouth and staring at her like she might be kicked out at any moment. Lena picks at her own food, stifling a pleased smile as Kara eats her vegetables without complaint. 

“So…I’ve been thinking.” Lena starts, and Kara chokes on her food, clearing her throat quickly and putting down her plate. 

“Right. Yeah. What have you, um, been thinking about?”

Lena meets Kara’s eyes, serious and probing. “I want you to tell me everything. Everything I didn’t know, everything I missed while I was in the dark. No more lies.”

Kara nods immediately. “Of course. No more secrets. But, you are going to have to sign a few things at the DEO once we’re done.”

Lena leads Kara to the couch, sitting down and smiling in earnest when Kara scootches closer. 

“Okay, first question. What the hell is the DEO?”

To Lena's surprise, their friendship actually gets even better after that. They see each other just as often, but now Kara doesn't have to make up excuses as to why she has to take off suddenly, and Lena can just wait in her apartment and watch TV until Kara comes back, usually tired and slightly sooty, to collapse on the couch again. 

There are even more brunches and surprise work visits, both in the super-suit and out of it. Jess had almost had a heart attack the first time she saw Supergirl sitting cross-legged and casual on Lena's office couch with a bulging mouthful of pad thai, but she took it in stride, and Lena finds that she doesn't mind having her two friends turn out to be one. Slowly, painstakingly, Kara worms her way back into Lena’s heart and takes up residence there permanently. 

There is one downside, though. This new closeness and the freedom of Kara's new candor means that slowly, inexorably, Lena is forced to admit that she's in love with her best friend. 

It’s something she’s always known, on some level. It grew in as naturally as scar tissue over an old wound, as a new tooth. She’s in love with Kara. Of _course._

When Supergirl was still an untouchable entity and not falling asleep on her shoulder every weekend, Lena could justify the occasional fantasy. And, when Kara was still holding something back, Lena could justify keeping a bit of emotional distance to protect herself. Now, every day Lena slips a bit further into the bottomless sand pit of seemingly unrequited love. 

A turning point comes a few weeks later, when Kara begs her to download Snapchat.

Lena doesn't really see the point of the app - _"If you want to send pictures, why not just send them over text?" "That's not the point, Lena! There are filters and captions and you can draw - just download it, please?"_ \- but it seems to make Kara happy, so she smiles at Kara's goofy shots and sends back neutral responses. 

It changes when Kara sends her a picture that almost makes her drop her phone. 

Lena is having a rare quiet night in, having left the office at a decent time. She took the oppourtunity to luxuriate in the shower and moisturize, put on some soft pants and a tank top, and curl up in bed with a book. She's feeling almost relaxed when she gets the notification.

**_Snapchat: from Kara Danvers_ **

Tapping the text bubble absent-mindedly, she turns a page of her book before looking at the screen. Her brain short-circuits before rebooting, trying to take in the image.

Kara is standing in what looks like a changing room, a few outfits slung over the door behind her. She’s pointing the camera at the mirror. She’s wearing a pair of what Lena openly calls her work-khakis and secretly calls her butch pants, with the low waist and the leather belt. That in itself is cause for some fluttery chest-feelings, but the real star of the show is the top. Or, really, the lack thereof.

Kara is wearing a fitted women’s vest, and not much else. 

The lack of sleeves make her arms look amazing – _is she flexing?_ – and her stomach is…something else. It stands out under the dark fabric, and yeah, Kara is definitely _absolutely_ flexing. Nobody has a ‘relaxed’ 8-pack, not even Supergirl. Dragging her eyes up from that situation, Lena notes with interest that Kara’s face looks…sultry? Her head is tilted, her free hand reaching up to grip the back of her neck, and her tongue is peeking out as if she’s concentrating hard on her pose.

She’s still processing the sight and trying to rein in the sudden urge to drive to wherever Kara is right now and lick her abs when the photo disappears, the 10-second timer running out. Dimly, Lena realizes that she hadn’t even read the caption.

_Fuck._

The relaxation of the night is gone, replaced with the kind of tension that she’s been studiously avoiding dealing with ever since Kara came back into her life. She spends at least 20 minutes just staring at her phone as if Kara’s name on her otherwise-empty list of contacts will reveal something to her, explaining what the hell just happened.

She has to reply, obviously. It’ll look suspicious if she doesn’t. And, to be honest, there’s a rising part of her that wants to _do_ something in response. Kara is sending her pictures that literally steal her breath – she should be able to send something back, even if Kara won’t have the same reaction.

After spending way too long trying to decide on a pose, she finally gives up and goes with something simple. She musses her hair a little, bites her lip, and takes the snap with the air of ripping a band-aid off, attaching a mostly-neutral caption and sending it into the void with a knot of anxiety in her chest.

She’s about to throw her phone across the room to keep herself from refreshing the app every 10 seconds when a notification pops up.

**_Kara Danvers took a screenshot!_ **

Lena blinks in surprise. She looks down at herself, noting her appearance, and looks back at the app.

_She saved the picture?_

_...interesting._

Lena gets her leather notebook back out, and a new investigation begins.

* * *

 

**_Snapchat: from Lena Luthor_ **

_Oh, god._

Kara flops onto her back, dislodging a few couch pillows. She holds her phone up to her face, squinting accusingly at the cheerful pink square next to Lena’s name.

_Just click it. It’s fine. You can do it._

Still, the app taunts her. 

It’s not that she doesn’t like it when Lena sends her pictures. In fact, she was the one who had insisted that Lena download the app in the first place, so that Kara could send her captioned selfies. Which she had, for a few weeks – Kara would send her photos of herself eating ice cream or, more recently, mid-flight views of the city during her patrols, and Lena would send back pictures of her desk or computer screen with captions like ‘Keep your eyes on the road, Supergirl’ or ‘None for me?’. It was a routine that worked for them, until Kara went and messed it up.

So, the issue isn’t that she doesn’t like Lena’s pictures. The issue is that she likes them _too_ much. She’d had one moment of hubris and now she’s a mess, afraid to tap her finger on whatever fresh torture awaits her. 

 

_“Alex, what do you think of this shirt?”_

_Kara steps out of the changing room, spinning a circle and holding her arms out nervously. It’s less of a shirt and more of a vest, really – a fitted women’s vest, in fact. It shows her biceps and some of her shoulders, and she absolutely intends to wear a tank top underneath later but for now, her abs are on display under the cropped fabric. It’s different than she’s used to, more revealing, but she can’t deny that she feels good wearing it._

_Alex looks up from her phone, and her eyes at least widen slightly before she looks back down. Kara dragged her out to shop after work, and she’s clearly bored out of her mind._

_“It looks great, Kara.”_

_“You think so?” Kara fiddles with it in front of the mirror, pulling it down to cover more of her stomach and then swiftly pulling it up again when that just reveals more cleavage._

_Alex smirks. “Lena will love it.”_

_“Lena? You think so?” Kara tries to sound nonchalant, and knows she’s failed spectacularly when Alex snorts._

_“Just buy the shirt, Kara.”_

 

And buy the shirt she did, but not before taking a snap of herself in the changing room mirror and sending it to Lena. It’s a totally platonic thing to do, right? Friends send each other pictures while shopping. And if Kara stands taller than usual, or flexes unnecessarily, or pulls down the vest just a bit to make her chest look good, that’s just vanity. 

So, she wants to impress Lena. There’s nothing weird about that.

Ever since she admitted who she really was, she's felt a sense of intense freedom. She had thought that telling Lena she was Supergirl would make Lena treat her differently, but if anything they've gotten closer since the admission. To be fair, there was over 2 months of silence between them where each day without seeing Lena’s face felt like psychological torture, but now that they’re being honest with each other they spend more time together than ever.

In fact, Lena seems to make it a goal to make sure that Kara gets to spend more time as Kara Danvers. The brunches and visits increase, now including frequent movie nights at Kara's apartment, and now Kara doesn't have to wrestle with guilt as she lies her way out during Supergirl emergencies. She can just leave, do her thing, and come back to Lena still sitting on the couch, dozing or scrolling her Instagram feed. Once, she even came back to Lena cleaning her kitchen. 

The change is wonderful, and welcome, and for a while she lives in a happy bubble where she gets to spend guilt-free time with her favourite person and nothing bad happens.

Until she sends that damn snap.

It takes so long for her to decide on a pose that Alex yells at her through the door, and she finally takes the picture, captioning it ‘what do you think? ;D’. In the chaos of gathering her clothes, cashing out, and getting home, she doesn’t have time to check her phone for Lena’s reply. 

Later, as she’s brushing her teeth, the moment of truth comes. She scrolls through her notifications, seeing one that makes her grin.

**_Snapchat: from Lena Luthor_ **

Kara opens the app idly, tapping on Lena’s name, and promptly chokes on her toothpaste. 

Lena sent her a selfie. She’s never done that before – and what’s more, the picture is… _very_ new. Lena’s hair is down and looking soft and fluffy and a little mussed, and the pillow she’s hugging to her chest isn’t covering it up so much as pushing it – well, making her chest look – 

Kara almost drops the phone as she finally takes in Lena’s face. Her eyebrow is quirked in that way that Kara loves and her lower lip is caught between her teeth. The caption reads ‘Looks great…wear it tomorrow?’

There’s a lot to process there.

With a start, Kara’s toothbrush drops from her mouth and into the sink as she notices the little number in the top right corner, counting down. She’s not ready for the picture to go away – she wants to keep looking at it, possibly for the rest of her life. 

5…4…3…

Before she can talk herself out of it, Kara takes a screenshot of the picture and exits the app. 

_There. Now I just have to put it where Lena will never find it, and that’s the end of it._

She hides the picture in a buried folder in her phone, and tries to forget about it. 

Unfortunately, Lena seems to have taken Kara’s changing room display as an invitation to add a new element to their friendship. Kara now receives almost as many snaps as she sends – for every silly selfie and food picture she sends Lena, what she gets in return are slowly driving her crazy. 

Lena sends her stunning selfies backlit by the sunset through her office window at L-Corp, with her hair like a dark halo and her eyes a piercing green. She sends changing room photos as well – she shows off tight dresses and fitted blouses with straining buttons, asking Kara’s opinion from afar. She sends artful shots of her long, elegant fingers, ostensibly to show off a new thumb ring. She sends photos of her bare legs in skimpy sleep shorts, her curvy thighs laid out across the couch as she watches a movie alone on a night that Kara has Supergirl duty, captioned ‘wish you were here…’

Kara feels her willpower slip with each one. The small, ignorable, completely heterosexual girl-crush that she had been keeping under wraps spirals wildly out of control, and she has no idea what to do about it.

Every time the yellow notification pops up, Kara tells herself that she’ll just look – Lena is her friend, and she doesn’t need Kara ogling her like some teenage boy. Lena obviously trusts her enough to send these photos, and Kara feels like she betrays that trust every time she takes a screenshot and saves it to her Folder of Shame. But every time, as her heart pounds over whatever unintentionally sexy photo Lena sends, Kara can’t keep her hands from moving over the buttons and screen until the photo is safely stored in her phone for her to stare at later. 

And that’s the extent of it, for a while. She establishes a sort of cycle – she stresses over each photo, takes a screenshot, stares longingly at it later, feels guilty, rinse and repeat. It becomes Kara’s new secret, in a way. She agonizes over the fact that she promised Lena not to lie anymore, but consoles herself with the thought that there's no way Lena knows what she's been doing. And besides, there’s no way that she’d want to know. 

Lena only brings up their strange, one-sided snapchat conversations once, during lunch. Kara holds up her phone and tries to take a few photos, but only succeeds in getting blurry shots of Lena covering her face, laughing. 

Kara puts her phone down, pouting as she reaches for her water bottle. “Come on, Lena! You always cover your face.”

“You see more than enough pictures of me already, Kara.” 

Lena’s face only changes momentarily, but it’s long enough for Kara to recognize the expression. It’s that look that Lena gets when she’s putting her heart out there, but expecting the worst. Somehow both vulnerable and guarded. Her eyes meet Kara’s, and there’s something there – a question, almost as if Lena is waiting for something.

As if she knows.

Kara promptly chokes on her drink. Lena rushes to her side and rubs her back as she coughs, eyes watering. Lena scolds her playfully for trying to inhale her lunch, and the tense moment passes.

_It’s fine. I’m just paranoid._

So they continue, Lena sending photos and Kara trying to pretend that she doesn’t look at them before she goes to sleep and subsequently wake up most mornings to hazy dreams of Lena naked and writhing underneath her. 

It’s a completely manageable kind of insanity, until it isn’t.

The breaking point comes when Kara decides to try to get on Lena’s level. _Two can play at this game,_ she had thought. _Maybe if I start sending them back, it’ll make me feel better_ , she had thought. 

She was very wrong. In this game, Lena is in the world series, and Kara is barely playing little league. 

Kara, in a fit of inspiration, gets Alex to take a picture of her in her Supergirl suit, lifting Winn on one arm and Vasquez on the other. It shows off what she knows are her best assets without being outright. As she sends it, she feels the thrill of a job well done. 

It lasts all of 15 minutes. 

She’s still in the middle of the DEO when she gets the reply. She puts her feet up on the briefing table and clicks it almost absently, glancing down at the screen as J’onn describes the newest alien threat. When her eyes focus on it, her feet come crashing through the table to embed in the cement floor.

“Shoot! I’m sorry – I –“ Kara saves the picture quickly, the process almost second-nature now, and hurries to help clean up the splinters of wood and bits of concrete.

“Kara, Jesus, what got into you?” Winn asks, trying and failing to pick up a large chunk of table.

"I just got…startled. I'll get you a new one, I swear."

"Supergirl...'just got startled'?" J'onn looks at her suspiciously, and Kara quickly cuts off the eye contact. Of all the times to have a mind-reader in the room, this is possibly the worst. J’onn has no business seeing Lena like that, much less knowing Kara’s deepest thoughts about it – about how Lena looks with her shirt unbuttoned and open, a red lace bra standing out in the florescent lighting and, clearly visible, two faint circular outlines under the fabric -

A chunk of concrete crumbles in her palm, and she hurries away before more questions can be asked. Ducking into a little-used hallway, she pulls her phone out again. 

The picture is breathtaking, if she’s being honest. Even under harsh florescent lighting Lena’s skin looks soft. She can’t tear her eyes away from the revealed skin – she can see small birthmarks and freckles littering her chest and throat, and a hint of Lena’s bellybutton at the waistband of her skirt. Kara stares at the picture, finding all her hazy dreams coming back to her with the new visual input. Finally, she reads the caption.

‘Thinking of buying it. Thoughts?’ 

_Yes, I do have thoughts. My thoughts are that I’d love to peel it off with my teeth -_

A uniformed agent turns the corner, saluting Kara as he passes, and Kara almost launches herself through the ceiling.

She’s wet, she realizes – wet and throbbing, because of a half-shirtless photo from her very platonic, very female friend. She puts the phone in her pocket and takes a few breaths.

_Distractions. I need distractions._

Kara tries. She throws herself into Supergirl duty, stopping several traffic accidents and an armed robbery. When that well dries up she goes home and tries baking, but she keeps getting distracted by her phone, sitting innocently on the counter and boring holes into the back of her head. By round 4 of cleaning her entire apartment, she has to admit that the distractions aren’t working - she’s still haunted by the image of Lena’s bare skin. 

By the end of the day she’s spread out in bed, with the photo on her screen and her hand in her pants. 

Her fingers work tight circles around her clit as she imagines that barely-clothed version of Lena beside her, on top of her, inside her. She soaks in Lena’s piercing eyes, her sharp brows, her strong jawline, and her lips pulled into a smirk until she’s arching and crying out and coming all over her own fingers, surprising herself with the strength of it. 

The guilt is momentarily blotted out by waves of pleasure, but afterwards she throws her phone onto the sheets beside her, completely spent and hating herself for it.

_I just came. I made myself come, thinking about Lena._

Suddenly she feels incredibly, painfully alone. She wants Lena here beside her, kissing her gently as she comes down, giving her that gentle smile that she reserves just for Kara, where her eyes crinkle at the corners. She can almost feel the warmth of her body, can almost hear her soft, lilting voice murmuring against her skin. 

_I love you._

Kara’s eyes fly open, and she sits upright suddenly. 

_Oh, no._

No. She can’t love Lena. It’s an idle fantasy, one caused by a few weeks of weird sexual frustration and some good old-fashioned loneliness. Kara isn’t gay, and Lena is her friend – her beautiful, kind, soft, incredibly attractive friend whose touch gives her butterflies and who she wants to spend all her time with and whose name was on her lips when she came.

_Okay. Maybe some re-evaluation is in order._

She doesn’t delete the folder, and a new step is added to her shame cycle wherein she ends most nights with the usual guilt accompanied by a powerful orgasm at her own hands and Lena’s name chanted under her breath.

 

Now, as Kara reclines on her couch staring at the new notification, the guilt comes roaring back. 

She’s been a bit wound up ever since her brunch with Lena yesterday, when Lena’s top shirt button had popped open and Kara almost bit her fork in half when she noticed. She isn’t sure that she has the stamina to take in another picture, but she also can’t ignore it.

Finally, she taps the screen, and whimpers pathetically.

_You have to be kidding me._

The picture features Lena with wet, tousled hair, wearing a slightly parted silk robe and drinking a red smoothie from a bright blue straw. The caption reads ‘Supergirl colours taste good!’

Kara’s legs are spread and she’s two fingers deep before she can even think about saving it. 

Looking away from the picture and closing her eyes, she imagines a fantasy where Lena is touching her, where that tousled wet hair is tickling her chest, and then her belly, and then her thighs as Lena spreads her open, murmurs sweet words against her skin.

_Supergirl colours taste good._

“Fuck, Lena…”

_You taste good, Supergirl…_

Kara loses track of the noise she’s making, lost in a world where Lena’s mouth replaces her fingers and her free hand is in Lena’s hair instead of still gripping her phone. Distantly, she considers letting it go before it inevitably gets broken.

She tries to do just that, intending to put it beside her on the couch, but it slips from her grasp and in her fumble to catch it, she notices that the camera is active on the screen. And instead of showing her ceiling, as it should, it’s showing a shaky video of her floor. It shifts up, showing some of Kara’s spread legs and the barest edge of movement under the fabric, and her stomach drops out. She can’t hear the audio, but she can imagine what it’s captured – she’s been moaning Lena’s name for the last few minutes.

“No, no, stop it!” Kara fumbles one-handed, trying to exit the app, but only succeeds in dropping the phone onto her stomach. When she hurries to pick it up again, the screen just shows her contact list.

The world comes to a grinding halt for a moment when she sees something bad. Something _horrific_. Possibly the worst thing that’s ever happened in human or Kryptonian history.

A little purple arrow, coloured in, next to Lena’s name. 

_Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no, no -_

The panic rises, choking her with its intensity. What did Lena see? What did she _hear_? Kara had only seen a few horrifying seconds of the video, but with the new Snapchat update consecutive videos could go on almost indefinitely, overlapping each other. Kara has no idea what the extent of the damage is, and it makes the whole situation all the more mortifying.

And, the worst thing of all, the absolute height of humiliation – the arrow turns white.

_She saw it. She saw it? Oh god_ – 

**_Lena Luthor replayed your snap!_ **

_…what?_

Kara stares at her phone, at that traitorous little arrow and the notification, for what feels like hours but is really about 35 seconds. Just as she’s contemplating throwing herself into space and never coming back her phone lights up, the screen displaying a photo that Kara loves and Lena begged her to delete, featuring Lena with her mouth wide open and a piece of sushi suspended on chopsticks. 

**‘Incoming call: Lena Luthor’.**

Kara sits dumbfounded, staring at the screen in shock, with a hand still in her pants. She pulls it out hastily and wipes it on the couch without thinking.

_I can’t answer. She just saw – I don’t know what she just saw. But –_

The phone keeps ringing, and she takes a deep breath, looking at the contact photo. The photo of her best friend in the world. 

_Okay. We got through the Supergirl thing - I can salvage this._

With a shaking hand, she slides her thumb across the call button.

“…hello?”

“Kara.” Lena’s voice is sort of high, and a little breathless.

“Uh, hi Lena! What…what’s up?” Kara’s voice is squeaky, and she clears her throat nervously.

She hears a rustling, and an intake of breath.

“Interesting video you just sent me.”

“Oh?” Kara’s voice is at helium levels now, her throat tight. 

_God, she hates me, she’s going to hate me, she’s…she’s breathing hard?_

“I certainly wasn’t expecting that, but I can’t say I’m complaining. I’ve been wondering when you’d catch on, considering you’ve been screenshotting them for weeks.” The rustling is louder now, and she hears Lena exhale in a huff.

“I – you – what?” Kara stutters, trying to catch up. All thoughts of playing it cool and brushing the incident off evaporate immediately. “You can tell when I – how did you know that I did that?!”

“Snapchat sends a notification, Kara. I get a notification every time.”

“Oh, god.” Kara thinks to her folder – well-angled photos of Lena in various states of dress, and Lena got a notification when she saved each and every one. “Oh, _god_.”

“So, after weeks of hinting, imagine my surprise when I opened my phone and stumbled onto a video of your living room floor, accompanied by the unmistakeable sounds of you masturbating.” 

Kara chokes at Lena’s casual tone. 

_“Lena!”_

“What? Would you prefer different wording? A video of you _fucking yourself_ , then.”

She stifles a groan at the sound of Lena’s voice forming the words. _Fucking yourself_. It’s what she was doing, but hearing Lena say it makes her burn with embarrassment and something else, something much worse that makes her throb and ache, something she should _not_ be feeling while on the phone with her best friend. 

Even if, confusingly, her best friend actually sounds into it.

“Oh my god, I’m going to die.” Kara flops back onto her pillows, hand over her face. “It was an accident, Lena, I was holding my phone and I – you - I’m so sorry, this is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me. Can we just forget this ever happened?”

“You said my name.” 

There’s a long silence as Kara lets the information sink in.

_Oh, no._

“Is that what you’ve been doing every time you saved those pictures? I’ve been wondering what you do with them.”

“I – I –“ Kara stammers, unable to bring herself confirm it but not wanting to lie. _Can a Kryptonian have a heart attack on earth?_

Thankfully, Lena keeps talking. “I’ll take that as a yes. I was hoping you’d get the hint when I started sending you photos of lingerie I ‘was thinking about buying’.”

“But – friends do that, right?” Kara asks. Her perception of the last few months is starting to shift to accommodate this new information. “I thought –“

Lena sighs. “No, Kara. Friends don’t do that. I was starting to get confused about your signals, until now.” Lena’s voice quivers slightly – she’s nervous, despite her confident demeanour. The sound makes Kara feel better, helps her to clear her head and consider the situation. 

Lena saw a video of her… _doing that,_ and then she _called her_ to talk about it. That has to be good, right? 

_She was dropping hints. She sent them on purpose. She liked that I saved them._

“I…didn’t think that you were…um.” Kara stutters. “I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. I didn't think you…knew."

“I’m going to be honest with you, Kara. Your friendship means the world to me. But when I got the notification that you saved that photo, and then you kept doing it, even with the recent ones…”

“Oh?” Kara can’t think of anything else to say. 

“And then you sent that…god, that video.” Lena’s voice breaks, and Kara hears more movement. “And we absolutely need to talk about it, about this. But…” she hesitates for a moment, before pushing on. Her next words come out in a rush, and when they sink in, they make Kara’s head spin. 

“But, I’ve been touching myself since I watched it, and I don’t want to stop.”

The statement hits Kara like a freight train. She gapes, staring at the wall opposite her couch with sightless eyes – in her head she sees Lena, spread out on her bed and working herself up, all while she’s been on the phone with Kara – the thought is punctuated by a breathy sound from Lena, and Kara slowly eases her own legs back open.

“You’re…doing it, right now?”

“Yes.” Lena breathes. 

Kara swallows. Her fingers toy with the hem of her shirt, starting to slide up her abdomen again.

“Tell me.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Lena answers immediately, her voice even more breathless. She sounds eager, open, like Kara’s question has released something she’s been holding back. It’s intoxicating.

“Tell me what you’re doing, right now. Tell me what your hands are doing.”

Lena moans quietly. “My hand is on my breast. Playing.” She gasps, and Kara can imagine her arching into her own hand. “It feels good. The other one is on my stomach. I’m teasing myself.”

Kara’s hand slides up to toy with her own nipple, and she must make some sort of sound in response to the jolt of pleasure she feels because Lena speaks up.

“Are you touching yourself, Kara?” 

“Yes…” Kara hisses, pinching harder so that her hips twitch. “Same as you.”

“Describe it to me.” 

Kara’s face burns. “Lena…”

“Tell me, Kara. Tell me what you’re doing to yourself.” 

“I…I…” Kara has no idea what to say – Lena’s voice is liquid fire in her veins and her awkward stuttering is nothing in comparison. She has no idea how to articulate what she’s feeling when Lena is clearly so skilled at unwinding her with words. 

Lena keeps talking, trying to spur her on. “My right hand is – fuck – is on my clit, now. I’m so wet, Kara.” Her voice is almost a whisper, but Kara hears every word, every tiny exhale. If she tried, she could probably focus her hearing enough to hear Lena without the phone connection. Lena picks up on her silence, and correctly guesses her thoughts. Her voice is a purr, a low rasp as she teases.

“Can you hear me, Supergirl? Can you hear my fingers move, hear how wet I am for you?”

And god, after that, Kara couldn’t stop herself from honing in on Lena’s apartment if she tried. She hears Lena’s heartbeat first, racing wildly. She hears the rustle of sheets, Lena’s now-ragged breathing, and – _fuck._

The wet sounds that Lena’s fingers make as she rubs herself are obscene and dirty and so, _so_ good. She wants more. She wants to see, as well. She wants to touch, to taste. Kara whimpers, and Lena’s breath hitches.

Lena’s voice is higher and more girlish than she’s ever heard it, and the sound goes directly between her thighs.

“Are you listening? God - It’s all for you, Kara. I wish it were your fingers. I want to come on your fingers.”

How Lena manages to be so eloquent when she’s well on her way to an orgasm is beyond Kara’s comprehension. She can’t repress the desperate groan that Lena’s words cause, and she puts the phone on the pillow next to her head before shoving her hand impatiently down her sleep pants. 

“Me - me too.” Kara’s voice is shaky as her fingers find her clit, slick and swollen. She feels herself getting closer even at the slightest contact, her arousal compounded exponentially by the slick sounds of Lena’s fingers speeding up. Kara frantically moves her own fingers to match her pace. 

“Tell me what you’re doing, please, Kara – “ 

Kara can’t bring herself to be ashamed anymore, not with Lena making those sounds, not with her own hand building up what feels like the most powerful orgasm she’s ever had. The words tumble out before she can second-guess them.

“I’m rubbing my – my clit for you, Lena, it’s hard and it feels so good, I want to come for you, please -“ Kara isn’t sure what she’s begging for or why, but she knows that Lena is the only person who can give it to her. 

Lena lets out a ragged moan. Each of her exhales are high, keening sounds, and the sound of her fingers gets louder, as if she's more wet now than she was before. Kara wishes she could see it, could see the wetness she knows is dripping down to stain Lena's sheets.

“Kara – I’m so close –“ 

“Put your fingers inside.” Kara rasps, panting. “Imagine they’re mine –“

_“Kara!”_

As Lena cries out, Kara can hear the scratchy sounds of her toes curling in the sheets, can hear the noises she makes twofold through her powers and the tinny phone line as she works herself through it, chanting, "Kara, Kara _, Kara, fuck_..."

Hearing her name in that frantic, lilting voice is more than she can take and Kara comes with a shout, losing coherency for a moment as her world narrows to Lena’s voice, the throbbing pressure in her belly, and the pleasure radiating from it as it finally releases. If she hadn't dropped the phone a few minutes ago, she probably would have broken it.

Kara listens as Lena's fingers get jerky and then still, her breathing slowing from gasps to whimpers to gentle pants. She's overwhelmed with the feeling she always gets after she does this - the desire to have Lena close, to hold her and hear her voice and lose herself in the softness of her lips. But it’s different this time, more acute, a sharp _need_ rather than a dull ache.

_I can do that. She called me. I could do that, right now._

"Kara?" Lena asks, sounding nervous. Kara hears shifting, and imagines Lena post-orgasmic on the soft, pillowy bed that she’s glimpsed a few times through the French doors to her bedroom. 

Kara is out the window in seconds, leaving her phone behind.

She alights on Lena's balcony a few moments later. Lowering her glasses, she sees through the curtains that Lena is spread out in bed looking delicious, her hand resting on her thigh. The silk robe from the picture is hanging off her shoulders. She's also looking at her phone in obvious concern. 

Kara taps gently on the glass door, and Lena's head snaps up. She pulls her robe more securely around herself and makes her way to the door, parting the curtain and looking at Kara standing on her balcony in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt with wide eyes.

The lock opens with a quiet _snick_ , and Lena’s flushed face peeks around the edge. Her eyes are blown out and her heartbeat is still pounding away. Her hand is gripping the edge of the door tightly and Kara can see that her fingers still look shiny, leaving barely-noticeable trails on the glass surface.

She looks, in summation, absolutely wrecked, and Kara aches to see how much further she can go.

The silk over Lena’s thighs flutters in the breeze as she opens the door wider. Instead of struggling to find something to say, Kara steps into the apartment and closes the door behind her. When she turns back around, she’s met immediately with hands in her hair and an insistent kiss that’s all tongue and teeth and hot, panting breath.

Lena grips the front of her shirt in a tight fist, like she’s afraid for Kara to pull back, afraid to let their lips disconnect. Kara echoes the sentiment – if they stop kissing, she might wake up and find that this whole thing has been a particularly detailed dream. One where she’s intimately aware of every square inch of their skin that touches, where she can note and file in her memory the exact pressure and taste of Lena’s tongue in her mouth. 

Lena makes a soft noise of surprise when her legs hit the edge of her bed and she falls back onto the soft mattress, her dark hair fanning out behind her. Her lips are red and kiss-swollen and slightly shiny, and her robe has parted to reveal miles of soft skin. 

Her panties are surprisingly plain - a pair of simple, dark blue boyshorts of the type meant to reduce pantylines – and Kara finds it absurdly endearing. She expected something fancier – silk or lace maybe, something that matches Lena’s expensive wardrobe. The endearment turns to something else when Lena spreads her thighs slightly, and reveals the soaked material between her legs.

Kara leans down, crawling over Lena, who moves back to recline against the pillows, a single finger hooked into the collar of Kara’s shirt to guide her until their bodies are almost flush. Lena quivers, her robe parting even more until it hangs from her shoulders and Kara can’t tear her eyes away from the revealed skin, the soft nipples steadily pebbling under her gaze. 

She slides her hands from Lena’s hips up to her ribcage, leaning down to dip her tongue into the hollow of her collarbone and up until it swirls circles over the single beauty mark in the centre of her throat, the one that Kara has spent months wanting to taste. The frenzied energy has slowed into something almost languid as Kara asks permission to continue.

“Is this okay?” She breathes, her wandering hands coming to a halt just under the curve of Lena’s breasts. Lena arches, trying to get closer to her mouth as she takes one of Kara’s hands and slides it up, squeezing her fingers overtop.

”Don’t you dare stop.”

Kara moves down and pulls a nipple into her mouth, and Lena makes a sweet, broken noise that Kara files away to be revisited later. 

The frenzy comes roaring back, then. Lena’s hands scrabble at Kara’s shirt, slipping underneath to claw at her back as Kara lets go of her reservations and lays claim to as much of Lena’s skin as possible. 

“Kara – please, your shirt?” Lena pulls on the fabric to illustrate her point. Kara groans, releasing Lena’s nipple with a slick sound and biting at the soft skin beside it. She doesn’t want to take her hands off of Lena for a second, even if it’s to take her shirt off.

“Don’t want to stop touching you.” 

Lena’s smile is brilliant, although she claps a hand over her mouth in an attempt to hide it as Kara’s mouth systematically claims every inch of her. Finally Lena pulls the fabric up herself, forcing Kara’s head through the collar and pulling until Kara finally raises her arms and throws it behind her haphazardly. 

She has to admit, though, she’s glad that Lena removed it. The feeling of their chests pressing together for the first time is one she isn’t likely to forget. This outstrips any fantasy she’s ever had - every second of this experience is searing itself into Kara’s memory, just in case.

In case it never happens again.

Another thing she’ll never forget is the way Lena tastes, the heady flavour on her tongue as Lena grinds herself on it. When she comes the first time it’s with a wordless shout, her fist tight in Kara’s hair and her heels digging into her back. The second time is with a sob, broken and almost sounding like Kara’s name, her release spilling into Kara’s mouth as her entire body arches like a bow. 

When she finally collapses, shaking, Kara rushes up to kiss her again before she can even stop to wipe her mouth and chin. Lena doesn’t seem to mind, if her low moan is any indication – in fact, their kisses quickly turn messy as Lena seems to lose herself in cleaning her own come from Kara’s face. Soon both of their faces are slick with it, and the thought makes her hips grind forward - she wants more, _more._ Lena groans again as Kara’s pants make contact with her overstimulated skin. 

“I’m sorry – sorry, that was just so – watching you was…a lot.“ Kara mumbles, starting to roll off of her. Lena touches her shoulder and pulls her back, still languid and shaky but enthusiastic.

“No, Kara, I want to touch you. Please.”

“Okay. Anything.” Kara breathes. “I just…don’t want to hurt you.”

“I have an idea. Take your pants off.” Kara hurries to comply, pulling the sweatpants and her underwear off in one and throwing them behind her. Lena directs her until she’s straddling her torso, then guides her up and up until finally Kara has one leg on either side of Lena’s face. 

“Lena –“

“Hold onto the headboard, and don’t step on my hair.”

“Are you su –“ But Lena is already licking a broad stripe through the frankly embarrassing wetness in front of her, and Kara’s sentence ends with a shout and the faint crack of Lena’s solid oak headboard under her clenched hands. 

In minutes she’s close to shaking apart, every muscle locked as Lena’s tongue works beautiful, swirling magic. Lena’s hands are on her hips, scraping her nails down Kara’s thighs, and then it’s only one hand – Kara makes the mistake of looking behind her and almost puts her fist through the wall when she sees that the other is working frantically between Lena’s legs.

“Lena, _Lena, Rao_ …” Kara gasps, resisting the urge to grind her hips down at the sight. Lena moans, and the muffled sound of it spurs her on even more.

“Lena, come with me please, I want to come together –“ Lena makes a strangled noise in the affirmative, and she hears her hand speed up. 

“Lena, I’m gonna – I’m –“ Lena arches underneath her, her breath coming in little whimpery puffs as she manages to keep her tongue moving, and Kara loses track of her words. In seconds she's coming loudly and messily in Lena’s mouth. Kara briefly worries about it being _too_  messy, but Lena just keeps moving her soft hands over Kara’s hips, lapping at her and making little pleased noises, until she finally moves her hips away. 

Not wanting to risk hurting Lena she shakily dismounts, but Lena grasps at her and pulls until they’re lying face to face, trading deep, lazy kisses. Kara can feel Lena's smirk through them, can taste herself on her pliant mouth. 

“You seem to have made an impression on my headboard.”

Sure enough, looking up Kara sees two splintery, almost perfect hand-shaped indents in the wood. She grins sheepishly.

“I’m sorry I broke your bed.”

Lena smiles, drowsy and playful. “I like it, actually. I think I’ll keep it this way.” She strokes Kara’s cheek, narrowing her eyes. 

“Now, I have a serious question for you – big spoon, or little spoon?”

Kara falls asleep doing what she’s longed to do every night for months – cradling Lena close to her front and placing soft, sleepy kisses along her spine. 

* * *

Kara wakes up not to her usual alarm blaring or even to the buzz of her phone, but to the soft hum and trickle of an automatic coffeemaker and the rays of the sun on her face.

She frowns, eyes still closed.

_I don’t have an automatic coffee maker._

The sheets are soft against her skin, the high thread count gliding over her bare back as she stretches. 

Her bare back.

_I’m naked._

An arm slides over her stomach, followed by the warm press of a soft body against her side and even puffs of breath on her neck.

In a rush, the events of the previous day come back to her, and her eyes fly open. She’s in Lena’s airy bedroom, lying in her soft king-size bed, with the French doors thrown open to the rest of Lena’s sunny penthouse and Lena herself wrapped sleepily around her, nuzzling into her shoulder. 

Happiness fills her up like wine in a glass, expanding in her chest until she feels like she’s overflowing with it. 

_It wasn’t a dream._

She feels the distinct urge to fly, to dance, to yell. She feels alive and vibrant and _human._

Then Lena starts to stir, and the elation turns to anxiety. 

_What if she doesn’t want me? What if it was just a hookup, and she wakes up and realizes –_

Lena’s eyes ease open, focusing on the skin in front of her and tracking up Kara’s neck until they hit her face. Kara swallows, biting her lip.

“Good morning.”

“Morning.” Lena’s voice is raspy with sleep and she blinks slowly. There’s a pause where the only movement is her thumb rubbing over the skin of Kara’s hip a few times. “You stayed.” 

“Of course I did.” 

Lena just keeps looking at her, still a bit dazed from sleep. “Is this a dream?”

“I hope not.” Kara whispers, trying to take in Lena’s adorable tired face – her messy hair, the slight indent of her pillowcase on her cheek, the hint of sleepy dust in the corners of her eyes. 

Finally, Lena smiles almost disbelievingly. 

“I’d like to kiss you right now.” 

Kara snorts at the matter-of-fact tone, instantly relieved. “I think I can make that happen.” 

They trade soft kisses in the comfort of the bed, each one easing the anxiety in Kara’s chest until it’s almost gone. It has none of the fervor of the night before, that desperate need to devour, to claim. It's unhurried, secure and comfortable. It makes her heart soar. Unwittingly Kara finds herself pouring her feelings into those kisses - all the deep, desperate love she has for Lena, her desire to protect and care for her. Right now, in this moment, she can almost imagine that Lena loves her too.

Eventually they get up to sit and drink the fresh coffee in the sunny breakfast nook, Lena in her robe and Kara wrapped in Lena's soft sheets.

“I’m not usually a morning person.” Lena says into her coffee mug, her toes resting on Kara's bare calf.

“I would never have guessed.” Kara deadpans, and Lena shifts closer to hit her on the shoulder playfully.

“Just because _you_ wake up refreshed by the sun. Does coffee even work for you?” 

“No, caffeine doesn’t. But I like the taste.”

Lena takes a sip of her own cup, humming at the flavour. Kara wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t know how you drink it black, though.”

“I have elevated tastes.”

“Are you saying I don’t?” 

“I’m saying that putting four sugars in your coffee ruins it, you heathen.” 

“Okay, first of all –“ A low, familiar buzzing cuts through Kara’s almost-lecture about the joys of refined sugar, and she zeroes in on the source – her phone, still lying on her bed back at her apartment. She remembers, suddenly, what she had been doing when she got Lena’s snap yesterday. She’d been trying to finish her article, which was due – Kara glances at Lena’s microwave clock, which reads _1:15pm_ \- about 3 hours ago.

“Kara?” Lena is looking at her expectantly and a little nervously, and Kara _really_ wishes that she didn’t have to leave.

“I’m really sorry, but I have to go – I had an article due, and I still haven’t finished it, I wasn’t expecting –“ Kara cuts herself off, gesturing vaguely between them. 

Lena laughs slightly, not quite successfully hiding her disappointment. 

“It’s all right. I’ll see you later?”

“Absolutely!” Kara says, speeding around the apartment and putting her abandoned clothes back on. It’s with a bit of embarrassment that she leaves her panties behind – they’re ruined, anyways. “I’ll just, um – I’ll call you? I promise.” Lena nods, looking unconvinced, but Kara’s phone is buzzing again and she panics. 

She places a quick kiss on Lena’s cheek as she fumbles her way back out onto the balcony, taking off at top speed.

_A kiss on the cheek? Seriously, Danvers? You probably still have her come on your hands and you go for the friend-kiss?_

It takes her the better part of three hours to finish the article in her distraction, and when she finally sends it to the editor, she finds herself full of restless energy. She takes a shower and checks her phone reflexively, fully aware that she promised to call Lena and resigned to the fact that she’s being a coward. Several times she brings up Lena’s contact tab, finger hovering over the call button before changing her mind and putting her phone down.

_Is it too soon? What time frame is appropriate to call the best friend that you had amazing, mind-blowing sex with last night to tell her you want to do it again, preferably every day until the end of time?_

She briefly contemplates calling Alex, but decides against it when she realizes that would mean _talking_ to her about sleeping with Lena. She isn’t sure she could handle that in her current state. 

She doesn’t even have a good excuse for not calling Lena – she has no articles due after the one she just finished, and her DEO phone remains stubbornly silent. But calling her means that Lena has the chance to reject her, to tell her that it was a one-time thing, that their friendship is too important – all the very last things that Kara wants to hear right now. 

Just as she’s considering going to the DEO and tiring herself out in the training room to burn energy, she hears a familiar heartbeat entering her building. It’s faster than usual, and accompanied by the almost frenzied tapping of fingers on something cardboard, but it’s unmistakeably Lena’s.

She’s here. She’s…here. At Kara's apartment. 

Immediately Kara tears around her living room with super-speed, frantically tidying the evidence of her stress-induced mess and changing into something that isn’t the same sweatpants from yesterday. By the time Lena is standing outside her apartment door, she’s sitting on her couch with faux-calm, staring mindlessly at the television.

Lena stands there for a few seconds, three pizza boxes on her arm, seemingly hyping herself up. She raises a fist a few times, looking unbearably nervous. She turns as if to leave but turns back quickly, shaking her head and sighing.

“You can see me, can’t you?” Lena calls out, her voice only slightly muffled by the door.  Kara opens it with a smile. 

“Yeah, I can. It was really cute, though.”

Lena blushes, shoving the pizza boxes into her arms. “Movie night?”

“Sounds perfect.” 

‘Movie night’ ends up being Kara eating almost three pizzas by herself and Lena eating exactly half of one slice and the crust from three more, the two of them curled up on Kara’s couch and staring at the screen. Kara isn’t even entirely sure what movie is playing. 

She feels every point of contact between them with burning clarity. Lena’s left hand rests on her own thigh, and with her right hand she’s tracing over the tips of each of her fingers with the pad of her thumb, a nervous tic that Kara has picked up on. Kara itches to reach out and touch her, to slide hands onto her waist and pull Lena onto her lap.

_Come on, Danvers. They don’t call you the hero of National City for nothing._

Slowly, painstakingly, Kara brings her fingers to rest on Lena’s thigh, spreading them out comfortably over the warm fabric of her pants.

Lena’s restless hand freezes. Kara hears her heartbeat stutter, and then pick up to a fast rhythm. After a few moments, Lena’s hand slides on top of hers, and their fingers intertwine. 

Kara lets out a breath, and beside her Lena laughs nervously. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Lena mutters, and Kara bristles indignantly.

“Hey, you could have done it! I can’t be carrying the team here –“

“I came over with pizza when you failed to _call_ me, if you recall.” 

“I – well. Okay, yeah. You’re right.” Kara admits, and Lena laughs, moving closer on the couch. 

There’s a brief silence where Lena’s thumb traces over the back of Kara’s hand. Their heads are leaned together, Lena’s legs drawn up in front of her and close to being slung over Kara’s lap.

“What are we doing?” Lena whispers, looking up to meet Kara’s gaze. Her eyes draw Kara in like they always have – blue and green and grey all swirled together in a devastating combination, clear and bright. 

“I don’t know.” Kara admits quietly.

Kara isn’t sure who moves first, but the next thing she knows she’s on her back on the couch, with Lena’s mouth on hers and her hands working on divesting her of her shirt with great enthusiasm.

_Talking is overrated._

* * *

Waking up next to Lena for the second time doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as the first.

There’s still the warm feelings, the soft skin, the arm around her middle. 

Only, this time there’s also Alex, standing in front of her bed with a look of mingled shock and horror.

“Oh my _god_ , Kara.”

_“Crap!”_

Alex turns and storms around the corner to the kitchen, covering her eyes, and Kara throws the comforter over Lena’s mostly-exposed body. Lena frowns herself into wakefulness at the loud noise. 

“Kara?” Lena’s voice is scratchy from overuse the night before, and she rubs her eyes in such an endearing way that Kara has to exercise a lot of willpower not to just let Alex go in favour of kissing her silly.

“I’ll be right back.” Kara kisses her quickly on the forehead, and scrambles to throw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. “Alex, wait –“

Closing the curtain that functions as her bedroom door behind her, she follows Alex into the kitchen, where she’s taking a swig from the bottle of scotch that Kara keeps in the cupboard.

“ _Alex_ , it’s like, 10 in the morning!”

"Trust me, Kara, I need this. You couldn't have _warned_ me, so I didn't have to walk into your apartment to see Lena Luthor's bare ass in your bed, not to mention _other_ bits -"

"Shhh!” Kara whispers frantically, gesturing towards the bedroom where she can hear Lena’s elevated heartbeat. “It only happened two days ago! I've been a bit busy - besides, why didn’t you knock like a normal person?"

"Because you weren't answering your phone!"

Oh. Right.

She had made the mistake of grabbing at it last night to stop the incessant buzzing while Lena was kneeled behind her, three fingers deep and working her into a fourth. Lena had chosen that exact moment to curl her fingers downwards, and the phone shattered in her hand - the debris is still lying broken on Kara's floor. She'd completely forgotten, to be honest. 

"I...broke it. I haven't been able to get a new one yet." 

"Clearly." Alex rubs her face, still grimacing. “You could have flown over and told me.”

“I…was busy.” As much as she tries to stop it from happening, her cheeks flare red as she remembers exactly what she had been busy with.

Seeing her blush, Alex groans again. “Kara…”

“What? You’ve been telling me for ages to own up to how I feel.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean ‘ignore your DEO phone calls to have sex with your girlfriend!’”

“She’s not –“ Kara sighs, sitting on one of her kitchen stools and putting her face in her hands. “I don’t know what we are.”

“You haven’t talked about it?”

Kara gestures frantically for Alex to lower her voice. “No! We’ve just been…you know.”

Alex makes a face and Kara shoves her, huffing. “Stop it. I don’t know how to bring it up. I don’t know if I should.”

"Kara, she's clearly crazy about you. Just talk to her." 

"What if you're wrong? What if I tell her that I have these - _feelings_ \- and she just wants sex?" 

Alex starts to protest. "She won't -" 

"You don't know that!" Kara feels genuine anxiety rise again at the thought of telling Lena the true extent of her infatuation. Of her love.

"Neither do you, Kara. Look, I'm leaving, I'll ask J'onn to handle the DEO situation. _Talk to her._ " 

Alex leaves, slamming the door behind her and mumbling about ‘lesbian drama’, and Kara sits on the couch. 

"She's right, you know."

Kara jumps, and the couch creaks dangerously as she slaps a hand to her chest. "Shoot! Lena, you scared me. Were you -"

"Eavesdropping? Yes. Shamelessly. It’s a small apartment." Lena is peeking around the corner, wearing a pair of Kara’s leggings and one of her sweaters and looking dishevelled and adorable. There’s a blooming reddish-purple mark high on her neck, and Kara can distinctly remember putting it there.

Blushing furiously, Kara covers her face again, resting her elbows on her knees. “Great.”

Lena takes a seat beside her. She takes a deep breath, her even tone betrayed by her racing heart. 

“So, I guess it’s time to talk about this.” 

“Yeah.”

Lena drums her fingers on her legs, collecting herself before she speaks.

“I…have feelings, too.” Kara raises her head at that, catching Lena wince at her own wording. 

“You do?”

“I do.”

"Right. So we both have...feelings." Kara laughs, throwing her hands up. "We're both great at this, aren't we?"

Lena leans her forehead on Kara's shoulder. "This is what happens when you date someone with severe childhood trauma. Get used to this, Kara."

"I think I could get used to anything, for you." Kara grins happily, and Lena laughs, hiding her face.  "As long as I'm with you, I'm happy. I didn't think you'd want me. I just thought - with the pictures, and the phone call and everything, I was worried that was all you wanted."

Lena sighs. "I've never exactly been good at putting myself out there. I was scared to lose you, if I came on too strong. But when it looked like you were interested in something...physical, I jumped at the chance. It seemed easier."

"Looks like we both had the same idea." Kara smiles self-deprecatingly, and Lena matches it. 

Slowly, nervously, Lena reaches out to interlace their fingers. Kara pulls her in by the hand, tucking Lena’s head under her chin, and Lena burrows in happily, sighing. They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments until Lena breaks it with a burning question.

“So…do you _ever_ swear outside the bedroom? Or is it all ‘crap’ and ‘shoot’ and ‘golly’?” 

“I – I don’t _swear_ in the bedroom!”

“Oh, really? Let me contest that theory.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream at me in the comments or on tumblr @jazzfordshire!


End file.
